Agroportex.bio

Location of project activities

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Objective of the project

The objective of Agroportex.bio is to contribute to creating a world where organic farming is an economically desirable and accessible profession. The concept is based on the idea of both farmers and buyers needing a hands-on, high-quality instrument for their sales and marketing activities. The divide between them is continuously growing, and the global organic product flows suffer from fraud. In supply chains with up to 3 intermediaries, manipulations and irregularities are problems for importers and certification bodies. At the same time, certified organic producers tend to quit organic agriculture due to unfair competition with “fake” organic farmers, knocking down the prices for organic products. As the result, international importers and control authorities rate countries with such practices as “risky”. This even made the European Commission to launch the special Import guidelines for additional official controls on products originating from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Russian Federation for 3 years. In light of both the necessity and willingness of key market players to create a decent and effective solution to these challenges, aiming to increase the transparency and traceability of fair organic supply chains, Agroportex takes the lead in creating an image of the Ukrainian organic market as a reliable organic supplier, helping the operators in forming the fair global organic market by excluding fake organic operators and mitigating the risks in the supply chain.

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Main outcomes and recommendations of the project

Each year, multiple online platforms are being created to bridge the international organic supply and demand. The mobile application Agroportex.bio stands out as a niche B2B marketplace and trade assistant on the global market of organic producers that guarantees direct access for buyers from all over the world to proven primary organic producers. The core digital capability to develop software products that enable data-driven farming and help to increase transparency and traceability of fair organic supply chains was leveraged. As an alternative to conventional marketplaces where no compliance or certificate control is required as well as to specialised platforms and bulletin boards whose priority is not organic, Agroportex.bio is dedicated to create transparency in international organic markets for users from all over the world, maximising the value of digital tools and its relationships with hundreds of farmers by connecting them directly with buyers and enabling them to receive best prices for producing high quality food more sustainably, according to organic and agroecological principles.

Most conventional marketplaces are usually designed as websites. However, farmers cannot spend much time on the Internet while having a mobile phone at hand as most convenient, daily tool, in particular for the coming generation that is expected to take over the management of organic farms and marketing of goods. The app is simple to use, only giving access to certified primary producers who are enabled to find reliable partners and sell their products at fair prices while bypassing intermediaries. Each operator creates their own reputation history in the database continuously. In this way, organic control bodies can keep an eye on problem users, and improve their control of their clients from farm to fork. Farmers will have more options and are no longer forced to be price-takers in their local markets, instead receiving bids from a wider pool of buyers. The system collects up-to-date info on supply and demand as well as key pricing trends on the markets. A wide range of analytical data collected by the system will help to identify local markets imperfections and barriers in shifting to organic agriculture. Promoting organic approaches in farming, especially in the rural areas, will also result in growing number of jobs.

The platform itself has global potential: After the localisation of the interface, the range of products will grow progressively, as newly registered users upload their certificates. It is a tool for finding reliable partners and resource for analytical reviews that later could become a tool for research and selection of niches in the organic market and encourage farmers to switch to organic agriculture. Global adoption will broaden networking by creating stronger communication channels between Ukrainian and international organic operators. This should provide even more possibilities for mutual exchange of best organic farming practices, raise the level of proficiency, boost research, and simplify the process of innovations share and implementation in the near future. Directly connecting producers and buyers is a also critical step towards a food system that is responsive to the voices of citizens. As long as farmers are producing a commodity, they have little economic incentive for producing a higher quality or more sustainability. Agroportex.bio enables buyers to buy directly from producers, reduing the supply chain costs and increasing profitability for the whole industry while making the transaction more transparent and efficient. Marketing of goods with fair prices is imperative for increasing the number of organic farms.

Innovation scale and stage

From concept to implementation, it took 2 years, including studying the real market needs and analysing mistakes of forerunners, aiming to build efficient communication between market players.

Agroportex.bio was first launched and became available for download at the end of July 2018. It is now on the stage of Ukrainian organic producers’ acquisition. During the 1st month, it was downloaded more than 200 times. 57 % of the users have sent their registration requests, and 13% of users with 80 product categories are finishing the compliance. By the end of 2018, they are expected to complete the submission of the documents as well as their certification compliance in order to have their own profiles ready in the system. At the beginning of 2019, an English version will be available. Operators (buyers and producers) from all over the world are welcome to join the system.

Stage (2018-2019): Local Ukrainian market of producers – 300+ (0.01% of the world market)

Stage (from 2019): Scaling-up to EU Market of producers – 373.000+ (13.68% of the world market)

Stage (from 2020): Global world organic market – 2.7M producers

Adoption in non-RUS/ENG-speaking countries is planned under the help of the main local key players – cooperatives and associations – that will create the global network for such an innovative approach in their organic markets. However, the organic market is considered to be just the starting point since there is a high-end monitoring system available. In the future, potential for this innovation to be adopted by other niches in conventional markets is expected to also strengthen these supply chains.

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